MDC scoffs at police search for terrorist training bases in SA

By Tichaona Sibanda
18 May 2007

18 MDC activists facing allegations of petrol bombings have been denied bail again because the state has sent police officers to South Africa to search and locate their alleged training bases.

The MDC has however scoffed at the searches saying it is a plot by the government aimed at demonising the party. The first MDC activist to be falsely charged under the terrorism Act in 2001 said government is using the same tactics against those detained, to destabilise party structures.

Solomon Chikohwero, who was arrested and charged with bombing MDC offices near the Fife Avenue shopping complex, said intelligence services went to great lengths to fabricate evidence against him.

‘I see a lot of similarities between my case and that of Ian Makone, Paul Madzore and other activists. A police officer based at Morris depot bombed our party offices and blamed it all on me. The policeman even said he got the explosives from me,’ Chikohwero said.

For the next few months Chikohwero was severely tortured in detention and was accused of recruiting serving soldiers to join an MDC terror group. A news clip featuring soldiers confessing to being recruited by Chikohwero was used as part of evidence against him.

‘The government has the resources to build a fictitious crime against you. They will also interrogate you to a point where you tell them things you did not do, believe you me, you tell them anything just to escape the beatings. But these are all diversionary tactics from problems affecting the country,’ he said.

Chikohwero said government was using the same methods against his incarcerated colleagues in Harare. The police said on Thursday it had dispatched 16 police officers to South Africa to search and locate places where opposition party youths were allegedly trained to carry out terrorist activities.

Two officials from the Attorney General’s office told High Court Judge Yunus Omerjee during a bail hearing for the 18 MDC activists that the state could not proceed with the case as its officers were still in South Africa investigating. The state is accusing the activists of receiving terrorist training in South Africa and blamed them for a spate of petrol bomb attacks on state institutions in March. The activists have been in remand prison ever since, and deny all the charges.